


Broken stained-glass

by asmallkitten



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Comfort, Depression, F/M, Hurt, Isolation, Romance, Self Harm, Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 05:59:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5279399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asmallkitten/pseuds/asmallkitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just an angsty little piece I had written and wanted to share. Introducing little Mariella Trevelyan, sad mage and Cullen lover :)<br/>Rated T for the suicidal themes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken stained-glass

Cullen is surprised by Mariella increasingly regularly. Before she took up the role of inquisitor she was guarded and hesitant, displaying little to no emotion. She had come to speak to him though, many times, much to his surprise. But of course, at first she hadn’t realised his past associations with the circle and the fear she regarded him with (once she found out his Templar status) was short-lived as he tripped over his words to quickly reassure her he had severed that leash. He did recognise fear of her within himself during those early days however. Mariella was incredibly slight, her head just breaching the line of his shoulders (she was often even mistaken for an elf) but maker’s teeth, was she beautiful. Her face was perfect symmetry, full lips, small nose, large, hypnotic eyes - the blue of them so pale he’d sworn they were silver – the dusting of freckles over nose, cheeks and forehead, long chestnut hair falling straight in perfect balance on either side of her face. And yet such a beautiful face is terrifying under certain circumstances; by this point, the knight has seen her surrounded by foes, sending out jagged bolts of electricity to incapacitate all around, frying them from the inside out as they scream in incomprehensible pain. If she’d been snarling during this fray he’d have been more comfortable but she held no hint of an expression at all; a mercilessly composed goddess of battle. It was as if she didn’t comprehend the danger she was in as she danced through the brawl…or perhaps at that point she simply didn’t care. Both options made his stomach churn. He knew by now just how very young she was…ten years his junior…and the fact would bother him more if he saw it in her more often. She only looks anywhere near her twenty years on uncommon occasions such as when she is drunk or throwing back her head for an uninhibited laugh, the rare opportunity to relax and merely talk or in the afterglow of a kisses shared. Far too much of the time for Cullen’s liking, she looks much too sombre and focused to be nearly so young. It was as if she’d aged a decade in the space of a few months, so much responsibility forced upon her…how could we be so-

“Cullen?” his head snaps up from the long-forgotten report in his hand and he is treated to a rare smile paired with a giggle. “You looked as far away as I wish we were.”

“Mariella, I didn’t hear you enter!” he stands to meet her around the other side of the desk, pulling her into a loose embrace “I was just thinking about you.”  
She pulls away slightly, palms coming to rest on his chest and head cocking to one side in a coy motion. “Mmmm? What about me?”

It is at this moment her attire comes to his attention. She must have come straight to him straight after combat training with Cassandra, she would never usually be so…scantily clad… Light leggings and a thin, scoop-neck vest were all that adorned her and they revealed more than he’d ever seen of her body. Narrow waist, the heave of breasts in their band, shoulders and clavicles standing out as if carved into marble, slim neck marred with a large, jagged scar. It drew his attention as it stood out against her statuesque form, it was raised and pink, what was referred to as ‘hypertrophic’ in the circle. She usually wore high collars, was this why? He tore his eyes from it and forced them back to hers; if she’d wanted to hide it for so long she surely wouldn’t appreciate him staring at it.

“How incredibly, impossibly beautiful you are.” He murmurs, leaning down to capture her lips in a gentle kiss. But gentle isn’t quite what she has in mind as she stands on tiptoes on his feet, arms locking around his neck and clinging to him. He responds in kind, bearing down upon her, lifting her off him to place her bottom on the desk and when they break off for air a thought occurs to him. He kisses her face as she heaves in oxygen, cheekbones, nose, the corner of her mouth, moving lower to the bottom of her jaw and coming to pay reverence to the past wound inflicted on her throat. His lips linger there for a fraction of a second before Mariella is no longer in his arms. She is scrabbling away over his desk, shrieking until she hits the wall behind her and sinks to the floor.

“No, no no no no no no!” is repeatedly torn from her vocal chords, her arms are now wrapped around her defensively and she appears to be rocking back and forth, staring at the floor, tears have already welled and begun their descent. She looks as terrified as he feels. He quickly begins to round the desk but she trembles like a leaf at his approach.   
Not wanting to frighten her any further he sinks to his knees a small distance away.

“Oh sweetheart, it is ok! You are always safe with me! I swear! I will never do that again! You have my word!” He pleads desperately, terrified he’s ruined everything.  
Thankfully, he appears to have struck a note with her as she slowly unravels her arms and crawls to him, only to collapse, burying her face in his lap after covering her neck with long hair. They sit like this in silence on the cold of his office floor, Cullen stroking the hair on the back of her head, soothing as her breathing evens out. “Poor darling...” he mutters and then adds even more quietly “what happened to you?”

“Would you really like to know?” she responds clear as day, shocking him back to reality.

“Would it help?”

“I don’t know, never told anyone before.”

“I-if you would like, if you think it might help…” The commander stammers, fear and curiosity waging war.

The little mage pulls out of his lap to sit cross-legged in front of him. She checks her breathing, eyes falling to the stone floor before she begins.

“Cullen, I have been just so, sad for so long. Especially in the circle. I was a quick learner but I didn’t make friends easily…you’d think being from a noble family might have increased my popularity but really, it had the opposite effect. I know I shouldn’t have let it get to me but after years of whispers and laughs and occasional stray spells coming my way” she pauses to smile at him grimly “…a boy burnt my hair off once y’know? They hated me. I hated me. I couldn’t fathom what I had done so horribly wrong but I was consumed by this loathing, so much so that my learning suffered. And once I wasn’t talented anymore I was nothing, less than nothing. And so I stole a knife from the herbalist, found a quiet, dim, unoccupied corner and tried to gouge my own throat out.” The little mage stopped to stifle a sob and held a palm to Cullen as he made to move: perhaps to caress, to comfort. “The Templars found me almost immediately. You must know what they then assumed…but…it wasn’t blood magic… I was ten, lonely and unloved and I wanted to die. I wanted to die Cullen…but I didn’t…I wasn’t even made tranquil… perhaps that would have been a mercy…” Mariella hears his breath catch and then shudder out once more, she knows this is terrible, that she’ll lose him once she’s finished but the floodgates have opened, the words are in endless flow now “our senior enchanter Catherine…she was the kindest person I’d ever known, she was my only friend and a favourite of all the apprentices… and she- she took- took the blame!” the last word was shrieked, “I didn’t even get a chance to deny being her- her subject. I woke in the infirmary, once she’d already been made tranquil, and had to hear it from the bloody CHANTER!” head in shaking hands, she now allows her tears to flow freely, droplets falling quickly to the unfeeling stone below. “All the adults thought I was crying because of her and the other children around thought it was because my attempt at blood magic had been thwarted! But no one knew!” Her head jerks up to look at him but she sees nothing, vision made impossible but the long-stifled emotion “No one knew! My only friend and she was made tranquil because of me! No one knew that it would have been better for everyone if they’d just LET ME FUCKING DIE!” Fists slam into the floor between them before she buries them in her eyes, her hair, they’re wiped across her face next and as quickly as the walls crumbled, they returned. Cullen watched the actual physical change take place as his inquisitor’s slumped shoulders squared once more, chin tilting up and that vacant, glassy stare that said nothing replaced the raw grief. He wasn’t sure which he hated more: when she felt so gut-wrenchingly sad or when she felt nothing at all. It was only when she got up and began to walk away – slowly, as if in a trance – that he noticed the tears staining his own face.

“I understand Cullen, I do. I knew that I must reveal this to you one day and that I’d lose you, that you’d hate me when I did but please, remain with the inquisition and I- I will not disturb your personal time any longer Commander” the blunt return of his title and the way her voice broke when she pronounced it hurled him back to the present. She was almost at the door now, and despite feeling as if he had aged 500 years in five minutes, he vaulted the table, chair crashing to the floor. Cullen’s arms flew around the slight frame; she felt so frail in his grasp, like she would shatter if he held her too tight. He had witnessed this tiny woman render Bull unconscious and yet he’d never felt so protective. 

“Maker, no…” he murmurs into her hair, “You know that isn’t who I am, please don’t reduce me to a title again.”

She trembles in his grasp “You don’t hate me?” whispers out, the left of her face pressing into his bicep and she is pressed further into him. She feels a rapidly blown out huff ruffle the hair on top of her head.

“Hate you? How could I? My poor, sweet girl I am so sorry for what you have been through.” He pauses to press kisses to her head as he feels the sobs returning “But I’m glad you told me…now…now we can both support each other properly.” She writhes to turn in his grasp and buries her face in his pauldrons. 

“Thank you!” her arms snake around his waist and his eyes spill over with tears once again at the veneration in her voice “Thank you Cullen!”

And for a while they simply hold each other and cry. They are two tortured souls desperate to escape their pasts, two figures of hope who keep none for themselves, two fractured pieces of broken stained-glass that somehow fit within each other’s jagged edges and miraculously create something beautiful together.

**Author's Note:**

> Ratings and feedback always welcome. I'm new to this so don't roast me too hard.


End file.
